


The Playlist

by 0nlyamemory, Seonhyeol



Category: Infinite (Band), K-pop
Genre: Drug Use, Ghosts, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Needles, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Serial Killers, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2831009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0nlyamemory/pseuds/0nlyamemory, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seonhyeol/pseuds/Seonhyeol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by / Based on the "Paradise" MV.</p><p>Kim Myungsoo wakes up to find himself a ghost. He recognizes his killer as a woman who's been visiting him at the host club he works at, but he knows nothing about her or why she killed him. One by one, the woman returns with a new man until there are seven bodies kept in freezers in the basement, and their ghosts fill the empty house.</p><p>It's only with the last that he learns the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Playlist

**Author's Note:**

> Written for letoutthewolf on LJ. (Just think, this was for a holiday exchange!)
> 
> Some important links:  
> https://8tracks.com/anon-9617454/the-playlist The "Playlist" for the story. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you listen to it while you read.  
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/13A4LYbGLRUjDNDJ0R1xrdKub57t7jgNJiDyzmhOC1P4 Collection of all of the lyrics for the songs.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj0FvZGSzCo Paradise MV  
> http://goyangifighting.tumblr.com/post/106063886801 A reminder of what those magnificent outfits from Paradise look like.
> 
> General Information: This is set in sort of unspecific 2014. There's some time-traveling hairstyles because I felt like it. While this is *super AU* in general, my characterization is a combination of my interpretation of the MV and from when I saw Infinite in Maryland. The drug use in this story is informed by personal—entirely legal in a hospital situation—experience and a lot of research.

_Come here boy, come here boy_

He becomes aware of the song before anything else: the lilting voice of a woman singing in English filling the space around him and in his mind.

_So why don't you stay with me for a little longer…_

It takes until he hears the same song again that his vision clears.

_You're mine tonight, oh yeah_

There’s the girl from the club who’s been hounding him for a few months—Sarang; she never told him her family name. He doesn’t know if that’s even her real name. He recognizes the oversized sweater-dress she often wears. She’s standing next to a chair that reminds him of going to a dentist to get his teeth cleaned. There’s some guy sitting in the chair but he’s hidden by her long, perfectly dyed brown hair.

_Come here boy, come here boy_

He’s trying to remember his English hagwon lessons to figure out what the woman is singing about when Sarang moves and he sees his own face on the body laying in the chair. He knows immediately that he’s dead, even though the body in the chair looks like it could be merely sleeping.

Stunned, he watches Sarang carefully put away the travel hair and makeup case on a raised table next to the chair. Without thinking he moves closer to her—to her and his dead body.

He realizes that she must have been telling the truth about being a makeup artist, because while he’s—he’d—always been good looking the body on the table could've been a member from a top idol group that he’s never heard of. He’s distracted from inspecting his body when she starts preparing a syringe, pulling a milky substance into it, the hypodermic needle poked into a small glass bottle.

On the table is a different needle and syringe, one that’s obviously already been used. A length of yellow latex ribbon is next to it. He can see more little glass bottles, some full of milky liquid and some not, and disposable needles and syringes inside a designer clutch. He wonders what she killed him with, and if she’s planning on killing herself. He hopes she is.

_You know I'm no stranger in your dreams…_

He more closely inspects his body as she’s passed out in an armchair that looks like it came from a show house magazine. Along with styling his hair and applying makeup, she changed his clothes. He can’t remember what he was wearing the last time he was alive—he can’t really remember anything about his recent past—but he knows that he’d never wear a black turtleneck, slacks and dress shoes quite like that.

There’s a sudden noise from somewhere: the old trot song that he has set as his boss’ ringtone because he knows he hates it. The jaunty instrumental is discordant against the sedate English language music that fills the room, but Sarang is too drugged to notice. He follows the sound of his phone to the other end of the room; he finally realizes that the room is actually a kitchen, the details of it firming themselves as he moves around them.

There’s his phone; clothes he recognizes as his that he guesses he must have been wearing; and the rest of his belongings he usually carries around with him, all laid out neatly on a table by a glass-windowed outside door. Sarang has taken everything out of his bag and wallet, from his DSLR he keeps with him in case he runs across a good shot, to his favorite chicken restaurant’s reward card half full of stamps.

The ringtone cuts off, and then starts again when his boss calls back immediately. He can only guess he must be missing work at the club, though he has no idea what time it is; the windows in the kitchen look like there’s gray contact paper on the other side; his phone is face down; and there are no clocks visible in the room. He remembers that the reason his boss must be so annoyed, since he usually isn't if he’s late or skips work, is that a group of girls had specifically requested him for one of their number’s birthday party.

The third time the phone rings it seems to finally cut through whatever drugs are in Sarang’s system, and she stumbles over to the table. Her fingers only fumble a little when she slips the phone his mom had bought him for his birthday out of the leather case from his little brother, pops the back off and removes the battery pack. Even though she’s wavering on her feet she restores his phone, sans battery pack, to how it had been before returning to her chair.

With little else to do he goes and watches Sarang doze with her mouth partly open, curled up in the chair with her feet tucked under her. It’s hard not to remember Sarang, though the rest of his life is becoming progressively hazier. Even though she was always beautiful, always perfect, from her plastic surgery to the designer clothes she always wore, there had always been something off, something a little too intense about her.

Even if it weren't just bad business to have sex with the women who went to the clubs—as his boss always said, once their fantasy is satisfied they won’t bother coming back to pay for overpriced alcohol just to spend time with you—he would never have been Sarang’s boyfriend. And she had tried, he remembers. Tried over and over again.

 _I'm falling, falling for you babe_   
_my feelings are getting stronger_

He’s not sure how long it takes, the seven repeating songs losing all meaning to him, until Sarang wakes up. He watches her face, controlled and cold in its beauty, as she looks at his body. There’s nothing there. No regret. No satisfaction. Just blankness.

Sarang stands up and walks to one of the closed doors in the kitchen—there are four in all—and opens it, revealing stairs leading down into a basement. Even though he thinks she turns on a light the stairs don’t look any different: he could see them just as clearly before she palms a switch inside the door.

He watches her pull his body up by his arms, easily half-carrying, half-dragging him like an oversized backpack towards the stairs. He remembers how she once told him that she used to do competition judo, and how that must not have been a lie either.

When she moves past him pulling his body along, he sees that there’s much more to the shirt she has dressed him in than he had seen before. It is as befitting an idol as the makeup on his body’s face, the back of the black turtleneck exposing his back completely except for a latticework of wide black straps pulling the shirt close to his body.

He follows her down the stairs, then back up them after she, without much ceremony, rolls his body into an empty chest freezer; there are seven of them in the basement. He’s a little offended when she takes much more care in packing away all of his stuff into a box before tucking it away on a shelf in the closet-pantry.

 _It's so insane_   
_You've got me tethered and chained_

He awakens out of his sleepless daze when he sees the kitchen door open. He has no idea how much time has passed since Sarang left after killing him. Once she left he’d discovered that he was stuck in the kitchen, unable to go through doors or any of those other things he thought ghosts were supposed to be able to do.

Sarang walks out of the gray murk and into the kitchen carrying a man like she had his body, his arms pulled over her shoulders. She looks the same as when she left; same oversized sweater-dress; same long hair. It could have been later in the same day, but he doesn't think so. He wonders if this man is dead as well, and then he hears an undeniably masculine groan.

After depositing the man into same dentist-esque chair Sarang disappears again through the door. He inspects the guy, feeling a little sad for him: he’s pretty sure he’s not going to be alive for much longer.

He’s about the same age, maybe a little older, as he is—was—though shorter and not nearly as attractive. Not bad looking, but still. He’s well aware of why he was always so popular at the club and it wasn't for his conversation skills.

He’s trying to figure out why the drugged man in the chair looks so familiar when Sarang comes back into the kitchen holding a clear sided storage container. Half-aware of Sarang unpacking smaller boxes, including the makeup case from before, he finally remembers where he’s seen the guy before: he works—worked—at one of the clubs across the street, one that specializes in noraebang. Their whole shtick is that the guys who work there can actually sing; a lot of them, he’s heard, are washed out idol trainees. He must have recognized him from when they’d passed each other going in and out of work.

Sarang must have spent time with this guy whenever he wasn't at work because he can’t remember ever seeing her go into any other host clubs on that street. Another bit of wisdom from his boss: Never think you’re special. Every single one of those women who act like you’re the only man in their life—they all have some other guy at some other club they say the same to.

After the container is unpacked onto the kitchen counter, he watches Sarang prepare a syringe from that same designer clutch; he wonders if she’s had medical training too with how precisely she measures out an amount of milky liquid. He has no idea what it is that she injects into the poor guy’s arm after rolling up the sleeve of his white button-down and tying the yellow ribbon tightly above his elbow, but soon his small, restless movements disappear.

 _I want to take you home_   
_We'll waste some time_   
_You're the only one for me_

The next thing Sarang does is take her phone—the latest Samsung model, in a silicone cover of some overly cute character he doesn't recognize—out of a pocket hidden in her sweater and hooks it up to a speaker system on the counter. A few seconds, and the first of those seven songs starts to play. He wishes, as he watches her return to the guy in the chair, that he had paid better attention at English hagwon.

She removes the phone from his pocket, pushing at his unresponsive body until she can get it out. It’s the only thing on him other than his clothing, one of the case ones that does double duty as a wallet. He follows her to the same table that he had seen his own stuff on and watches as she removes each card from the case, counts each hundred won coin, laying them all out in some order that only makes sense to her.

Kim Sunggyu is the name on the guy’s ID card when Sarang moves away after taking the battery pack out of the several-generations-old phone and he can look at it more closely. There’s also an ID card for a Performing Arts college, though it’s lapsed by several years. It’s obvious to him that Kim Sunggyu’s family must not be from Seoul because no one with a mother nearby has that many mostly full restaurant reward cards.

It’s kind of fascinating, in a deeply depressing way, to watch what Sarang does to Sunggyu’s drugged body. First she sets out what looks like the contents of a portable salon, slips on pink rubber gloves, and dyes his hair and eyebrows, bleaching and tinting the black to a light brown. Then Sunggyu’s hair is cut and eyebrows tweezed; it’s the first time he’s ever actually seen a straight-razor get used to shave someone. His own hair had merely been styled before she’d killed him; he’s not sure if he should feel proud to know his own sense of style passed muster.

Next she takes out a number of articles of clothing, all black, and considers Sunggyu before finally picking out an entire outfit; socks and black designer boxer briefs are even included. He wonders if his and Sunggyu’s outfits, obviously of a kind, are from some manhwa; performance outfits from an unknown group; or if she came up with them herself.

He remembers another thing he had thought Sarang was lying about as he watches her do a few alterations on the black clothes she puts on Sunggyu after stripping him of his old clothing, fitting them to his body like they’d been made for him; along with judo and having licenses for hair and makeup, she’d also told him that she had gone to fashion school for a while.

 _I'm not like all the other girls_   
_I can't take it like the other girls_   
_I won't share it like the other girls_

Once Sunggyu is dressed as she desires and his old clothes are folded by the contents of his wallet, Sarang sets out her hair and makeup cases. He has no more doubts about her expertise as a hair or makeup stylist as he watches her work over the unconscious Sunggyu; he’s done some modeling for a friend and she is easily as good, if not faster and more exacting, than the professional stylists.

Another needle in Sunggyu’s arm—his right this time, the sleeve a similar latticework as the back of the shirt on his body in the freezer. He watches Sarang take her stiletto-heeled half-boots off, putting them neatly together at the base of the chair, and then she slides off white, lacy panties from under the chunky knit of her dress. By the time she’s placed her folded panties on the table next to the chair, Sunggyu is starting to move again.

He turns away and tries to focus on the music he doesn't understand. It only does so much to block out the sounds of what he knows is happening.

 _Drown in me one more time_   
_Hide inside me tonight_

A few songs after the sounds stop he turns back around. Sarang is dressed again, her shoes on and her panties off the table, and she’s touching up Sunggyu’s hair. He’s not unconscious, his eyes half open, but he’s unresponsive.

Another needle and syringe, both entirely new; he wonders just how many she goes through. She fills it with far more of the milky liquid than before—far, far more. He’s not sure how long it takes Sunggyu to die. He falls still again soon after she injects him and unties his arm, and she stands by the side of the chair, her face calm, watching him.

And then the room blurs, and a perfect copy of the man in the chair is now standing next to it on the other side of Sarang.

 _I want to break your heart_   
_And give you mine_

“Why?” He jumps at the sound of a man’s voice: it’s Sunggyu’s ghost. “Why did you do this?”

He watches the scene before him; Sarang checking the pulse on Sunggyu’s body; Sunggyu sliding around the chair to stand next to her. Sunggyu tries to touch her, and while it looks like he is—his hand looks like it’s caressing her exposed shoulder—she doesn't react to it.

“You told me you could get me an audition!” Sunggyu shouts, the sound of a sob in his voice. He sounds over-loud and too real for a ghost. “That’s what you said—that you had contacts that you could get me in touch with!”

Sarang shows no response at all, just goes about putting away all of her cases into the clear storage container except for her clutch full of drugs. Sunggyu follows her, though he doesn't try to touch her again. He’s not sure Sunggyu has even noticed him there in the other side of the kitchen.

“You said that you understood that I couldn't go out with you.” The fight has quickly run out of Sunggyu, blazing up and out as fast as a piece of tender in a campfire. “You said that Jimin was pretty when I showed you her picture.”

Sunggyu stands in front of her as she dozes under the influence of her milky drug, his black slacks almost touching the chair, staring down at her.

_You look so fine_

“Can you speak English?” he asks when the seven songs have made another complete turn.

Sunggyu starts, turning towards him; he can see the surprise in Sunggyu’s face as he finally focuses on him. “Who are you?” Sunggyu asks, confused. “Do I know you?” He shakes his head. “Why are you here?”

He answers his fellow ghost’s questions in order, “Kim Myungsoo. I worked at a club across the street from yours. Sarang killed me first, I think.”

“Sarang?” Sunggyu blinks, then looks back down at the woman in the chair. “Do you mean Seulgi?”

“I guess. She told me her name was Sarang.” He shrugs. “Do you remember what day it is?”

“I—” Sunggyu doesn't look away from Sarang-Seulgi. “I don’t know. I know… that it’s almost May.”

“Then she killed me pretty recently. I can tell it hasn't been a year and it wasn't long after my birthday in March, but I can’t remember anything else.”

He moves over to Sunggyu and experimentally tries to touch his arm—and he can; he can feel the heavy cotton interlock of Sunggyu’s shirt the same as if they were both alive, unlike the living world surrounding him. Sunggyu looks at him, frowning, and he shrugs again. “Sorry. Just seeing if I could.”

 _Just one smile on your face_   
_Was all it took to change my fortune_

Having Sunggyu with him in the kitchen does little to repel the boredom of being a ghost; once Sarang-Seulgi leaves he just stands next to the kitchen door and waits without moving or responding in any way.

When Sarang-Seulgi shows up again it’s dripping wet, rain blowing into the kitchen when she opens the door. She lets her next victim drop onto the floor just inside the door as she dashes outside again.

He doesn't recognize the new guy but he can tell immediately that he also works—worked—at a host club due to the fact that he’s wearing his place of employment’s t-shirt. He wonders if the kid is even of age; he looks like he should still be in high school. The kid also looks like he should be an idol, thin and pretty with long-ish hair that’s been permed and bleached blond pulled up in a short tail.

He feels sadder to see this kid crumpled on the floor, wet bangs curling into his eyes, than he did at the thought of Sunggyu dying.

 _Once upon a time_   
_There was a boy_

She returns quickly with her storage container and a messenger bag over her shoulder, still looking the same—except for being quite wet—as she slams the door shut with her foot; same heels; same sweater-dress; same long hair. Sunggyu doesn't speak but starts to follow her around, always standing less than a foot away, always staring at her face.

After depositing her container on the same place on the counter as before, she hooks up her phone to the speakers, then opens the last of the four doors out of the kitchen. He follows her and Sunggyu through it into the rest of the house.

It’s a huge, Western style house, open and airy except for the all-encompassing sense of disuse. She goes up a flight of stairs and into a bathroom, pulling several towels out of a linen closet; he almost gets closed in the bathroom when she shuts the door behind her, but he manages to squeeze out under her arm just in time.

She leaves the door into the rest of the house ajar when she goes back into the kitchen, and he’s happy to find out that he can just get through it; he hopes that she doesn't close it before she leaves.

The next thing she does is fish out the kid’s phone from his bag and take the battery out. Leaving the bag and phone on the same table, she proceeds to strip herself and the kid of their wet clothes, depositing them in the sink; except for her sweater-dress, which she lays out on a towel on a free bit of counter. It’s somehow more disconcerting to watch Sarang-Seulgi in her lacy white panties and bra pull the kid onto a towel so she can dry the floor around the door. He notices some kind of scar on her arm, but doesn't pay much attention to it.

Once the kid has been thoroughly dried and pulled up into the black leather chair, his chin against his chest, and the towels have been whisked away and put into an expensive wash machine in a laundry room close to the kitchen—with a matching tumble dryer!—it all falls back into what he’s starting to think of as the routine.

There’s an eclectic mix of stuff in the messenger bag; from an open container of puffed rice crackers and a striped cardigan; to a college textbook about something to do with the origins of Pansori. He’s a little surprised to see that Lee Sungjong isn't really that much of a kid: he’s only a year younger than he is—or was.

Sungjong gets his hair dyed as well, to a dark sort of red color, and cut shorter. He wonders what Sarang-Seulgi drugs them with before she gets them to the mystery house—he really wonders where the huge house is, if it’s even still in Seoul and not in Chungcheong-do or something—because Sungjong doesn't move at all except to breathe through being dressed and having his hair flat-ironed.

Sarang-Seulgi stops midway through deftly applying eyeliner to shift the towels into the dryer and put Sungjong’s clothing into the washer. She doesn't even push the door mostly shut as she comes back in; he’s quite happy to investigate the rest of the house open to him instead of having to overhear what he knows is going to come next. He tries not to think about Sunggyu’s ghost always standing close to her.

 _Just one kiss on my lips_   
_Was all it took to seal the future_

Sarang-Seulgi is in her armchair; Sunggyu is staring at her; and Sungjong’s ghost is sitting on the floor by his body when he comes back into the kitchen.

“Your name is Sungjong, right?” he asks.

“Yes,” Sungjong whispers, his voice unexpectedly high. He doesn't look up at him, just continues to sit with his knees up and arms crossed over them.

“What is her name?” He’s a little curious to see if it’s different.

“Haneul.”

“Do you know why she killed you?”

“No.”

“Do you know what day it is?”

“No.”

“The month?”

“July.”

He gives up on trying to talk to Sungjong after that.

 _Just a twist in time ...and you could be mine_   
_Just a sip of wine ...and you could be mine_

The next time Sarang comes—he’s decided to just stick with the name he first knew her as—she’s swathed in a full length clear plastic rain coat, and so is the man pulled up on her back. He doesn't think it’s raining very hard, though, the plastic covered only in a light mist. Sunggyu starts following her again immediately. Sungjong doesn't move from where he moved him to sit in a corner of the kitchen; watching Sarang walk through him had given him the unpleasant sensation of wanting to vomit.

When the music starts up again he tries speaking to Sungjong again, asking the same question he had tried to ask Sunggyu, “Do you speak English?”

“A little.” The same high, emotionless voice.

Sarang has the new guy flopped over the leg rest on the leather chair and is pulling the rain coat off him.

“Do you understand the songs?”

 _You don't have to die to leave my world._   
_Stand still and you've departed_

“A little.”

 _It seems I'm not on your mind and_   
_I'm just wasting my time_

“What are they about?”

_Won't you leave me in the darkness_

“They’re sad.”

_Can't you see I'm standing naked_

Well, he could tell that just from listening to them. Giving up on Sungjong again, he goes and investigates the contents of the new guy’s wallet. Nam Woohyun is a year older than him, currently enrolled in a Master’s program at an Arts college, and had an exceptionally cute and rather plump girlfriend judging from the collection of Instax photos lined up in a row on the table.

He goes and looks for mice instead of sticking around for what he knows will happen.

 _If I should die this very moment_   
_I wouldn't fear_

He can tell it’s later in the year because while Sarang is still in her sweater-dress, the next man she brings in is clearly dressed for autumn. Instead of on her back she’s helping him walk in with his arm over her shoulder; he looks like he’s drunk, but he’s pretty sure the drug in his system isn't alcohol.

“Oppa, here—” Sarang leads him over to her armchair. They’re followed by Sunggyu and Woohyun; while Woohyun was never angry like Sunggyu was, he follows her constantly just the same. “Oppa, do you remember when you fell?” Sarang sounds over-sweet and babyish.

He remembers that Sarang called him ‘oppa’ too, even though she was several years older; he hadn't thought much of it at the time since it was pretty normal behavior for the ladies who went to host clubs. But now it sounds weird: Sarang calls the guy ‘oppa’ like she’s talking to her actual brother, not a man she’s been flirting with. Thinking back, he realizes that she had sounded like that with him too.

“What?” He can hear the Busan saturi thick in the guy in the chair’s voice. “I didn't… I didn't fall.” He shakes his head. “Nari, where is this?” He’s good looking in a slightly rugged way, but his thick makeup can only do so much to hide the acne scars covering his cheeks.

“You did—you were dancing at the club, but someone spilled a drink and you slipped.” He can tell that the break in Sarang’s pattern is worrying her: while her voice is politely concerned she has her hands fisted tightly in her sweater.

“This is my parents house—it’s north of the river. They keep it for tax purposes and let me use it whenever I want.” He’s never heard Sarang mention her parents before, or any of her family, but it sounds like she’s telling the truth. “I brought you here from the hospital when they said you just need to rest and have someone keep an eye on you.” That, he’s pretty sure, is a complete lie.

 _All this time I've loved you_   
_And never known your face_   
_All this time I've missed you_

“Really? I don’t remem—” He grimaces in pain and closes his eyes, clutching his head with his elbows on his knees. “Nari, why am I with you?”

“Because I have my own car,” Sarang says quickly, looking around the kitchen, fear clear on her face. She seems to realize something and walks toward the counter as she speaks, “I offered to take you to the emergency room. Your shift manager thanked me.”

 _All I've known_   
_All I've done_   
_All I've felt was leading to this_

The man seems to be in too much pain to respond, a high whine escaping his clenched teeth. He doesn't seem to hear Sarang pull open a drawer under the counter, or the sound of metal clinking against metal.

He wonders if Sarang is going to stab the man with the chef’s knife she holds firmly in her hand, but then she just drags his hand down from his head and hits his temple with the butt of the handle.

 _Could we stay right here_   
_Until the end of time until the earth stops turning_

Since Sarang immediately comes back through the door she had left open with her storage container he suspects that whatever she drugs them with had just started to wear off on the man now slumped in the armchair far faster than she’d anticipated. Her hands are steady as she pulls out a measure of milky liquid—a little more than he’s seen her give to them before, before the killing dose—and ties the latex tight over his jacket, but little wheezing sounds of terror creep out of her until she’s injected it into a vein on the back of his hand.

After that point it goes on as usual, Sunggyu and Woohyun looking like crows from an art video as they track her every movement.

Lee Howon is almost exactly a year older than he is, only off by fifteen days, which he finds a little funny. His bag is full of audition flyers, mostly for dancing or acting, and a bill warning that he hasn't paid his utilities.

 _For I've never known completeness_   
_Like being here_

“The FUCK!” He looks up from where he’s been watching a mouse nibbling at the edge of a wool-upholstered sofa in the living room. Howon must be dead now.

He is, his ghost attempting to hit Sarang as she puts away her things; the silent Sunggyu and Woohyun don’t even try to stop him, just stand out of the way. The music fills the room again; he’d almost started to miss it.

“You can’t touch her,” he says. Howon still takes another pass at her head, but his fist just stops, not even moving her hair. “You can’t touch anything. You also can’t walk through anything, which I think is unfair.”

Howon looks at him, his forehead creasing as he frowns. “Who are you?” He seems to become aware of the rest of them in their coordinated black outfits. “Who the fuck are all of you?”

“I’m Kim Myungsoo; Sarang killed me first. Then Seulgi killed Kim Sunggyu”—he points at Sunggyu, following Sarang to her chair—“and then Haneul killed Lee Sungjong”—Howon looks at Sungjong in his corner, bafflement replacing the anger in his face—“I don’t know who killed Nam Woohyun, and then Nari killed you, Lee Howon.”

“Hoya. Call me Hoya.” Hoya shrugs, taking a step towards him. His turtleneck is sleeveless, showing muscular arms, and his hair is now the same reddish-brown as Sungjong’s. Sarang’s skill with makeup has made his acne almost invisible. “Am I seriously a fucking ghost?”

 _I've found the one I've waited for_   
_The one I've waited for_

“Yup.” He shrugs, leaning against the edge of the door; it’s a peculiar sensation, since it feels like he’s propped up on thin air. “Do you speak English?”

Hoya stares at him like he’s gone insane. “What?”

“The music, do you understand it?” He waves his hand in the air before crossing his arms. “She always puts on this playlist when she comes to do her… thing.”

“Some,” Hoya says, frowning. They’re silent for a little while as the song plays. “This one is… it’s about having found someone and wanting to stay with them. Something like that.” Hoya looks over at Sarang curled up in her chair. “Do you know why she’s killing… people… us?”

“No idea. I just know that we all worked at host clubs—well, I’m just guessing about Woohyun since the rest of us did.” Another shrug.

Hoya looks at his dead body, and then down at his own ghostly form. “Do you know why she does this?” He waves his hands at himself.

“Nope. She never talks—just follows this routine.”

“What routine?” Hoya seems to be distracted by himself, patting at his bare arms and at his fine polished cotton slacks.

“Well, before you—I don’t remember what happened to me at all—she’ll drag one in and put him in that chair. She does him up like he’s from some kind of idol group”—he notes Hoya’s flinch—“and then she wakes him up a little with something and…” Hoya looks up at him curiously. “Well, let’s just say that when I didn't have to stick around to overhear anymore, I didn't.”

He can see the moment when Hoya understands. “She—?”

“Then she touches him up again,” he says, interrupting Hoya, “shoots them up with something that looks like milk, and he dies. We die. And become ghosts. Then she shoots up herself, sits in that chair for a while, puts the body in a freezer down in the basement, puts everything away, and leaves.”

“Propofol.” It’s his turn to stare at Hoya. “I think that’s propofol—the drug. There was a big scandal about some celebrities using it recreationally a little while ago.”

“Oh.” He shifts a little. “Well, before you came there wasn't much to do except watch mice. Sungjong just sits in that corner, and those two”—he flicked his fingers at the two in question, standing side by side in front of her chair—“will wait by the door until she shows back up.”

“Huh.”

 _So you'd sing a lullaby to get me to sleep_   
_So it's no surprise my eyes are never heavy_

It takes little time to discover that he and Hoya have very little in common. In the undefinable amount of time spent waiting for Sarang to show back up they tend to stay in the same part of the house, but that’s it for their interaction. While he’s never had much curiosity towards his own new ‘body’, there’s some entertainment value in watching Hoya investigate his own.

By the time Sarang does come back he’s found out that there was no way to change what their ghost bodies look like; they can’t untuck their shirts or remove the rings she put on their fingers; makeup can’t be wiped off; and if they touch their hair it will move, but then return immediately to whatever shape it had been ‘set’ in.

While he can’t be sure, he has the feeling that it hasn't been long since she killed Hoya when Sarang drags in a tall, thin man.

“I think I know him,” Hoya says to him. They’re leaning together against the wall as they watch Sarang wrangle the new guy into place in the leather chair.

“You do?”

“Yeah. His name is Sun… Sun-something. Something-yeol. I can’t remember exactly. He’d just quit when I’d started work at— At where I worked before. I was in the hallway when he was saying goodbye to everyone.”

Sun-something-yeol is fairly tall—taller than he is, he can tell, and before now he’d been the tallest; not that that means much, since he is—was?—of more or less average height. He’s sort of pretty in a soft-featured way, but different from Sungjong in his corner.

 _I am where I am and you're where you are_   
_You're where you are_

“Nari has such fucking weird taste in music,” Hoya says into the air behind him as he goes to inspect the contents of Sun-something-yeol’s bag.

“His name is Lee Sungyeol,” he says, trying to squeeze in around Sunggyu and Woohyun to look over Sarang’s shoulder.

“They called him Sun-gyeol, not Sung-yeol.”

“Huh.”

A long silence.

“There are only two shirts left—and two freezers,” he comments as he watches Sarang pull out one of the last two turtlenecks in her storage container. It’s long-sleeved and decorated with swathes of black embroidered rings like netting.

“Is it too much to hope that she’ll kill herself then?”

He shrugs.

 _And I'd ask if you're all right wherever you are_   
_And do you think of me, you might, wherever you are_

“Your name is Kim Myungsoo, right?”

He jumps at the unexpected voice; Sungyeol’s ghost is standing on the landing below him. He’s been following the small sounds of mice in the walls; Hoya had stayed in the kitchen out of some sense of curiosity.

“Yeah.” He goes down the stairs to stand next to Sungyeol. “What else did Hoya tell you?”

Sungyeol shrugs. “Not much.”

He gives Sungyeol the basic rundown of what he knows; Sungyeol doesn't look surprised, just depressed. He asks his standard questions next, “Do you speak English? And what did she tell you her name was?”

“Not really—I think I can remember how to say ‘Hi, my name is Simon’ and that’s about it.” Sungyeol shrugs. “That was my name in class. Her name is Kang Areum.”

“Kang Areum?” He raises his eyebrows. It’s the first time he’s ever heard a family name.

“Yeah.” Sungyeol leans against the wall; he can see the realization of what it feels like cross his face. “She was hired at where I work as a creative designer for our big Halloween party—the owner was really into that kind of stuff.”

“Do you know much about her?” He’s excited: this is the first concrete knowledge he’s ever found out about her!

“Some.” Sungyeol frowns, shrugging. “I was the most interested in that kind of stuff so she talked to me a lot; getting ideas for things that would suit different people—that sort of thing. I heard that the owner hired her because he knows her family. They both own a lot of businesses in Seoul—Gangnam, Hongdae, Itaewon, all the big places. Clubs, restaurants, that sort of thing.”

“So she’s really rich?”

“I guess.” Sungyeol shrugs again, crossing his arms over his chest. “She did tell me she wasn't getting paid—that she just wanted to do it because she likes to. She owns an imported car, some kind of SUV, but she doesn't use it that much because of the traffic and trying to find parking.”

“Huh.”

Sungyeol follows him back into the kitchen. Kang Areum is dozing in her chair; Hoya is leaning on the wall in the same place as before, watching her; and the other three are the same as usual.

_But I'm not sure we would know each other at all, all, all_

“I wouldn't have thought that she was a serial killer.”

He looks at Sungyeol; he’s watching Kang Areum from the doorway with a weird look on his face.

“What are serial killers supposed to be like?” Hoya says, then laughs; it doesn't sound like he’s laughing at Sungyeol, but at the world. “It’s not like they carry signs.”

“I don’t know.” Sungyeol shrugs. “But she always just seemed really… sad. I thought that she might be depressed; I knew someone once who had to take medication for it.”

All is silent for a while except for the music.

“She asked me out after Halloween,” Sungyeol says quietly. “I told her I would as a friend, but not as anything romantic since I’m…” He shrugs. “She said it was cool. I remember being on the Two Line to go meet her somewhere…” Sungyeol’s voice gets progressively quieter. “She was waiting with her car…” He shakes his head. “I can’t remember anything more.”

Kang Areum is mumbling something in her drugged sleep; Sungyeol and Hoya stay where they are but he goes closer to her, stepping around the other two. It’s the first time he’s heard her speak except for when she brought Hoya in.

But she’s quiet again. “Sungyeol, keep talking,” he says, nervous excitement filling him.

“What?”

“Just talk about something.” He crouches down by the arm of the chair and stares intently at her face; she’s frowning a little, her lips parted slightly.

“I, I don’t know— That’s really hard to do, you know.”

“What’s your zodiac?”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know—both.”

“Metal sheep. Virgo.”

There is definitely something going on with Kang Areum: she keeps silently mouthing something.

“Where were you born?”

“Yongin.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“A younger brother. His name is Daeyeol.”

“When was your first kiss?” He doesn't even realize what he’s asking until after he says it; maybe it’s because he’s staring so intently at Kang Areum’s mouth.

“My first year of high school.” Sungyeol sounds the same as before.

Kang Areum murmurs something too quiet for him to hear. “What was her name?” He keeps on the same topic: it seems to be doing something.

“His name was Jonghyun.”

 _All that I say now is nothing to you_   
_We will lie under different stars_

“Sungyeol—” He can barely hear Kang Areum. “Sungyeol-ah, where are you…”

Sungyeol pushes Sunggyu and Woohyun out of the way—they just move around to behind the armchair and continue to stare—and drops to his knees in front of Kang Areum. “Nuna, Areum, I’m right here.” A look of hope and fear is mixed on Sungyeol’s face when he glances at him before focusing again on Kang Areum’s face.

“Areum, I’m right here.” Sungyeol reaches out and touches her cheek, but she doesn't respond. “Areum, why did you kill me? Why did you kill Myungsoo?”

“Myungsoo?” she whispers. “How do you know Myungsoo?”

“Because you killed him. He’s here with me.”

But then Kang Areum opens her eyes, frowns, shakes her head, and gets up, walking through Sungyeol.

“Well, at least you tried.” He and Sungyeol look over at Hoya, who shrugs.

 _Oh the weight it must be light wherever you are_   
_And I know you don't think twice wherever you are_

“Jonghyun, huh?”

“Yeah.” Sungyeol shrugs. “Does it matter?”

He’s just finished showing Sungyeol around the house available to them. He thinks Hoya is lurking in the basement; Kang Areum left the door open. They’re standing on the landing again, watching a mouse run along the floor below them.

“No.” He drops down to sit on the landing, leaning against the wall with his knees up. “I don’t care, either.” He really doesn't and never has. “So why did you work at a host club?”

“It’s not hard to flirt with someone even if you don’t ever want to have sex with them.” Sungyeol sits next to him, mirroring his pose. “I… was… trying to save so I could focus on trying to get into acting full time. I thought of it as practice.”

“That was pretty much the case with me, except I wanted to be a photographer.” He looks sidelong at Sungyeol. “So just how long did you know her?”

“About two weeks, maybe.”

“I think she’d been going to my club for a little over three months before all this started.” He considers the high ceiling. “That was in April, though I’m not sure. I wonder what happened that made her start.”

“I have no idea. I don’t remember hearing anything about it… but I don’t—didn't—really follow the news much outside of entertainment stuff.” He can see Sungyeol shrug out the corner of his eye. “I do find it kind of funny that I’m a ghost, because I hated ghost stories when I was alive.”

Silence reigns for a while, except for a solitary squeak.

“So what do you do here?”

“Hang around, waiting for her to show up again. You can’t sleep. Or touch anything real. I haven’t figured out why most stuff is impermeable to us, but she can pass through us. We can’t go through her, but she can go through us.” He scoffs. “Mostly I watch the mice.”

“Touch anything real?” He can tell Sungyeol is looking at him.

“Yeah, we can touch each other.” He nudges Sungyeol’s arm with his elbow; Sungyeol starts a little. “But that’s it. You also can’t change anything like your hair or clothes.”

“Huh.” Sungyeol is silent for a while. “Can’t you... touch yourself?”

He can tell what Sungyeol is trying to get at. “Sort of. Not like what you’re thinking.” He shrugs. “You can… interact… with your own body to a degree, but it’s not like when you were alive. It feels real when you touch someone else, though, and if they touch you. I don’t know why.”

“Have you tried doing that with—?”

He glances over at Sungyeol, who is staring at and experimentally touching his own knees.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My only real option has been Hoya, and… no. Just no.”

He’s not surprised when Sungyeol tentatively touches his hand; it’s so weird to actually feel something again. He doesn't even bother trying to figure out why he can at all.

When Sungyeol shifts to kneel next to him he doesn't move, just sits and lets him touch him. There’s no sense of heat of any kind, but Sungyeol’s hands are soft on his cheek. He really doesn't understand how he can suddenly feel the texture of the clothes he’s wearing when Sungyeol’s hand presses them against his skin.

He watches Sungyeol’s soft face, frowning slightly in concentration, as he touches his hands; tracing the lines on his palms with his fingertips; tries to shift the rings on his fingers; and slides his fingers up the cuffs of his shirt, from around the silver bracelets on his wrists, as far as they will go.

Sungyeol’s eyes widen when he pulls one of his hands away and reaches up to touch his face; he can feel the powder residue on Sungyeol’s smooth cheek; the gel in his hair as he runs his fingers up through it.

“Are you—?” Sungyeol whispers.

“It doesn't matter.”

He shifts, sitting up facing Sungyeol with his legs folded sideways. Sungyeol watches him, the eyeliner Kang Areum put on him making his eyes look darker, with his hands over the tops of his thighs. It’s completely silent; no scratching of a mouse; no sound of breathing; no sound of fabric moving against itself.

He hooks his fingers through the small thread-embroidered rings covering Sungyeol’s shirt and pulls him forward. Sungyeol closes his eyes before their lips touch, reaching up to grip his arms tightly. It’s only a little strange to kiss a ghost; the only major difference is the lack of any sort of temperature recognition. Sungyeol’s lips are soft and full, and as the first long, firm kiss turns into another, he closes his eyes; he hasn't done so that often before, not needing to blink, due to the unease he felt in the near total lack of any and all sensory perception.

But now he can feel Sungyeol’s shoulders as he grips them tightly; Sungyeol’s hands on his arms over his shirt; the touch of his lips; the residual moistness on Sungyeol’s tongue when he opens his mouth to him. There’s no sense of taste, either, but he doesn't really care.

Kissing Sungyeol, desperate and clinging, would have been pleasant in life.

In death, it’s stunning.

 _If I could sleep forever,_   
_I could forget about everything_

He sits up and focuses on Hoya at the foots of the stairs when he hears him snort.

“She’s back,” Hoya says shortly, then turns away back towards the kitchen.

It’s been a while, he thinks. It’s no easier to keep track of the time with Sungyeol there than it was without him. They've mostly stayed on the staircase landing, stretched out on the floor that feels like nothing together. Sometimes they kiss, the most enjoyable thing available to them in this state, but mostly they just lay there in silence, shoulder to shoulder, holding hands.

“Want to go see?” he asks Sungyeol, looking down at him on the floor.

“I guess.”

The music is on and Kang Areum is going through the contents on the seventh and, he can only guess, last of her victim’s bags. Hoya is sitting in her armchair with his legs crossed at the knee, watching the room with an air of repressed anger. He doesn't even pay attention to the other three anymore.

“I think I've seen him before,” Sungyeol says as he bends over the chair to look closer at the unconscious guy sprawled in it. “A picture of him, I think.”

“Jang Dongwoo?” That’s the name on the driver’s license tucked inside his phone case. There’s a lot of stuff in his bag, from a laptop and an external hard drive to a number of folders stuffed full of papers. “He’s a year older than you.”

“Doesn't sound familiar.” He feels Sungyeol’s hand on his exposed back. They’re standing by an end of the table perpendicular to the one Kang Areum is leaning against with her two shadows behind her.

They watch her pull a stack of paper out of one of the folders: they’re fliers advertising the fact that some DJ is going to be at some club for a Christmas party. It’s gone through several filters, but the face on the flier is identifiable as being the same man in the chair behind them.

The second folder is also full of fliers, but these are advertising the opening of a new host club. The third folder holds a number of sets of sheet music, individual songs stapled together, music notes scrawled across the rows in pencil. The song on the top of the stack is entitled ‘Paradise’; he can’t read the English word, but he can sound out the transliterated title in Hangul that’s under it. The fourth holds what looks like designs for other fliers.

Sungyeol follows him when he goes to look closer at Jang Dongwoo. He’s a little short, and oddly attractive, his features seeming almost over-large for his face. What he can see of his face, anyway, between his snapback; a sweep of permed brown hair that covers almost half of his face; a thick muffler; and the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over everything.

He looks at Kang Areum in her heels and short sweater-dress, carefully arranging Dongwoo’s stuff on the table, and wonders just how cold she must be.

 _Well, I could sleep forever,_   
_But it's of her I dream_

They watch Kang Areum, wearing Dongwoo’s snapback, hem the last pair of slacks while standing by the counter, a pin cushion on a strap around her wrist. She’s already taken in the last shirt. Dongwoo is muscular under his layers of clothing, but also small and kind of skinny; the shirt could have fit a much larger man.

“I wonder how she picked us,” Sungyeol says, leaning against his shoulder.

“Who knows.” He shrugs. “I haven’t been able to figure it out.”

He’s a little surprised when Hoya, still sitting in the armchair, speaks, “I wasn't the first one she went after—where I worked, I mean. When she first came in in May she picked out someone else in the book, but after that first night he quit. She picked me the next time she came back.”

“What was he like?” he asks.

“A lot like me, I guess, but taller. He was even from Gyeongnam—from Ulsan. I didn't think it was that weird since a lot of those girls have a type they go for.”

He pulls Sungyeol out of the kitchen when Kang Areum starts to put up the makeup.

 _If I could sleep forever_   
_If I could sleep forever_

He can hear Hoya shout from the living room, “She’s getting ready to off him!”

They wait for Dongwoo’s ghost to materialize. Once he does, with pompadour’d hair and in the sleeveless turtleneck covered in straps that looks like it was taken from a bondage video, he immediately focuses on Kang Areum and frowns.

“Alyssa?” Dongwoo doesn't seem to realize he’s standing by his body. “What’s going on?” He’s speaking in English like an American actor.

“What did he just say?” he asks Hoya softly; Hoya translates just as quietly.

“Alyssa? Say something!” Hoya translates as Dongwoo reaches over his body in the chair and tries to touch Kang Areum.

Dongwoo jumps back as soon as his hand doesn't-touch her shoulder. He looks down, and finally sees his body.

“You’re dead,” he tells the frozen Dongwoo, speaking louder than before.

Dongwoo spins to look at him, his mouth open like he’s about to say something, but he doesn't. Just looks at him, then slowly turns in a circle, looking at everything around him. He sees Dongwoo start a little when he realizes that Sunggyu and Woohyun are standing behind Kang Areum.

“Do you know what this song is?” he asks when Dongwoo does nothing for a while except watch Kang Areum check to see if he’s dead.

“What?” Dongwoo is speaking in Korean now.

“The song that’s playing.”

“Sleep, by The Dandy Warhols,” Dongwoo says automatically, the unaccented English words sounding strange intermixed with Korean. “What’s going on?”

“She killed you, after dressing you up and fucking your drugged body,” Hoya says bluntly, standing up from the chair. He walks out of the room without another word.

Dongwoo stares after Hoya, then looks at him and Sungyeol. He’s silent for a while, then his eyes widen. “You’re Kim Myungsoo! And that was Lee Howon!”

“How do you know?” Sungyeol asks, straightening.

“And you’re Lee Sungyeol.” Dongwoo looks around him again. “All of you are here.” He sounds almost reverent.

“All of us?” he asks.

“There’s an entire Daum page about you all—the missing host club boys. It hasn't been in the mainstream news, but that’s society for you.” Dongwoo sounds oddly excited, grinning broadly with his hands on his hips. “There are all kinds of theories about where you all went—I even saw fanfic about you guys.”

Dongwoo looks back at Kang Areum, his grin fading. “I wouldn't have thought Alyssa was responsible. I mean, I've known her for… almost two years now. We had pho last week. I was going to meet her at her apartment tonight to show her the songs I've been working on.” He looks at the speakers when the next song starts playing. “I introduced her to Imogen Heap.”

“How did you know Areum?” Sungyeol asks quietly.

Kang Areum hasn't even put up the make case, is just standing there looking down at Dongwoo’s dead, placid face.

“We met at a club in Gangnam… We were both our group of foreigners’ resident Korean speaker. That’s why I knew her as Alyssa. Alyssa Kang.” Dongwoo sounds more thoughtful than sad. “And she knew me as Daniel Jang. I used to joke that it sounded like we should be a superhero team: Kang and Jang—together we fight crime!”

“Do you know if something happened to her around the time I—disappeared?” he asks. Kang Areum is finally moving, slowly packing up her makeup case.

“Her older brother died in a car accident.” Dongwoo frowns. “He was quite a bit older, but I think they were close… Or at least, there were a lot of pictures of them together in her apartment, back to when she was a little girl. She didn't actually talk that much about him.” He shrugs. “She didn't talk about herself in general. Mostly we talked about music.”

The next song plays. “This is Garbage.” Dongwoo bites his lower lip. “I know this song—I mean, of course I know this song, but I mean I know this playlist. It’s seven songs, right?”

“She plays it on repeat when she’s here,” he says. “As soon as she comes in with the… next guy. I think you’re the last, by the way.”

Dongwoo nods, but he’s obviously distracted. “This playlist… She was playing it when I went to go hang out with her after her brother’s memorial service.” He frowns again, but in a considering way this time. “I probably should’ve realized how weird it was then.”

“Why?” he asks. Sungyeol makes a little sound like he’s about to be sick and leaves the kitchen.

“They’re not exactly the kind of songs most people would play while thinking about their dead brother.” Dongwoo turns away from Kang Areum preparing her syringe and looks at him. “You even look like him.”

“What?” he shifts, then realizes what Dongwoo is talking about. “I look like her brother? Does that mean they were—?”

“Maybe. Or she wanted to. I don’t know.” Dongwoo shrugs.

“She kept asking me out…” He watches her curl up in her chair. “She said her name was Sarang.”

“Do you remember when you first met her?” Dongwoo sounds like he’s just realized something.

“I don’t know…” He tries to remember. “Maybe around this time of year.”

Dongwoo snorts. “Her brother announced that he was engaged then. To a woman, I remember now, who looked remarkably like a younger version of his sister. They actually met at some benefit dinner for the university that Alyssa went to for a while—she told me she left because she couldn't handle the pressure.”

There’s a long silence between them, and then Dongwoo asks, “Can you turn around?”

He stares at Dongwoo a moment, then does as he asked.

“I thought I recognized them.” He turns back around to see Dongwoo studying his dead body. “What did you say she told you her name was?”

“Sarang?”

“She had this comic she made when she was going to high school in America, for a college art class she was doing concurrent enrollment for. It was actually pretty good, in an overwrought teenager sort of way. When I asked her why she didn't keep doing art like that, she told me that she didn't have any other stories in her.” Dongwoo shrugs. “Alyssa said all sorts of weird shit; I think I was one of her only friends because I didn't get freaked out by some of the things that came out of her mouth.

“Her comic, it was all about this couple that dies, is reborn, finds each other again, and then dies—repeating seven times in all. Do the names Seulgi,” Dongwoo frowns, “Haneul and Bora sound familiar? I can’t remember the others.”

“Yes.” He feels safe in assuming that ‘Bora’ was who killed Woohyun. “Those are the names she told the others—except for Sungyeol. He knew her real name because she was doing something for where he worked.”

Dongwoo nods. “I remember. That’s when I started reading about the disappearances, because she had told me about what she was doing there. She didn't tell me about Sungyeol, though—I saw an article about it online and recognized the name of the club.”

“So why did she kill you?” he asks. “Since she knew you from before.”

Dongwoo walks over to the chair, shoos the silent crows away, and looks down at her. “I went over to her apartment,” he says slowly. “I played her the demo for my latest song. She said she really liked it, then suggested we go get groceries and make dinner together. She said that she didn't want to carry them on the subway or take a taxi so we were going to go in her car. Right after we got in, I’d just put my seat belt on, she leaned over and—”

“Danny—?” The syllables that creep out of Kang Areum’s mouth are quiet but unmistakable.

“—kissed me.” Dongwoo falls silent, and looks over at him with his eyebrows raised.

“She could hear Sungyeol a little, before.”

“Alyssa?” Dongwoo crouches down in front of the chair. When he starts to speak again, it’s in English. “Can you hear me?”

“Danny…” It’s barely more than a breath.

“Will you come back here again?” A long moment of silence. “Alyssa, make sure and come back here after you leave. Come here after you’re done going to the Music Bank taping.”

“Danny, why?”

“Come back here. Alyssa, tell me you’re going to come back here after Music Bank.”

Kang Areum whines, her forehead creases, and she squeezes her closed eyes tightly.

“Alyssa, tell me you’re going to come back.”

Kang Areum opens her eyes slowly as she whispers, “Danny?”

But then she blinks, shakes her head, and gets up.

“What were you saying to her?” he asks.

Dongwoo tells him as they watch her pull his body up on her back.

“But why?”

“Because I’m going to kill her.”

 _Today is gonna be the day_   
_That they're gonna throw it back to you_

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.” Dongwoo watches her put his stuff away into a box. “But I will.”

 _By now, you should've somehow_   
_Realized what you gotta do_

“So why do you speak English so well?” he asks when Kang Areum has left again.

“I went to high school in America. LA.” Dongwoo shrugs. “I did homestay with this couple with a son going to a local college. Eddie was a Korean adoptee, and his mom and dad started hosting kids from Korea when he was little to help him get in touch with his roots or something. They liked doing it so much that they just kept at it even after Eddie grew up. Mr Jones made some amazing kimchi bokkeumbap—they even made their own kimchi. I never told my mom that I liked the Jones’ kimchi more than hers. I think she might have disowned me if I had.

“Eddie is who got me into music that wasn't R&B and hip hop, and the first one who encouraged me to get into composing.” Dongwoo looks up at the ceiling, expressionless. “I was waiting to hear back from when I’d emailed him my demo on Monday.”

 _And I don't believe that anybody_   
_Feels the way I do about you now_

When Dongwoo doesn't speak again, standing in the middle of the kitchen looking up at the ceiling, he goes to look for Sungyeol. He’s on the landing again, leaning against the wall.

“Are you okay?” he asks, standing in front of him, looking up a little at Sungyeol’s face.

Sungyeol shrugs, a corner of his mouth twisting in a humorless smile. “As okay as I can be, being dead and all.”

“Dongwoo says that he’s going to figure out how to kill her.”

Sungyeol slowly starts to grin, a not very nice one, then reaches out and takes hold of his hands, and pulls him closer.

 _By now you should've somehow_   
_realized what you're not to do_

Instead of the landing he and Sungyeol start to hang out in the hallway outside of the kitchen, so they can tell immediately if Kang Areum comes back. Dongwoo spends his time pacing around the kitchen, humming and singing to himself in English; he’s a little surprised when he first hears Dongwoo sing. Somehow his light, pleasant tenor doesn't match the rest of him.

He hears the door open, and scrambles into the kitchen, Sungyeol following close behind. Kang Areum comes, holding her phone and her clutch full of drugs, looking exactly the same.

“Yes!” Dongwoo does a little victory dance in the middle of the kitchen. “I can do this!”

“Do you know what that dress is?” he asks after a while, when the music has started up again.

“She wore it to her brother’s birthday party, right before he announced his engagement. And when I say right before, his birthday party was on Friday and he announced the engagement on Monday.”

“Do you know where she gets the propofol?” Kang Areum has her sleeve pulled up over her elbow and is tying off her arm, one end of the latex ribbon held in her teeth.

“Probably her dad. She told me that he would fly her brother to Japan whenever he wanted to get high, making it look like business trips so no one would get suspicious.” Dongwoo keeps shifting where he stands, his excitement clear. “I didn't know she was doing this. She always wears long sleeves because of some scars on her other arm so I never saw any marks.

“I asked once why she always wore long sleeves when it was over thirty degrees outside, and she showed the scars to me; they’re pretty bad. She said that she got scalded on her fifth birthday… I asked her why she never got skin grafts or something like that, and she said that she never wanted to forget the lesson she learned. I never asked about it again because I could tell she was upset.

“As far as I knew she never did drugs except for prescription painkillers—legit ones. She tore a ligament in her knee during a competition match; I looked up and found a web article about it after she told me. She reacts badly to alcohol so she doesn't drink, and she told me that she tried marijuana once and never wanted to do it again.”

This time, instead of her armchair, Kang Areum sits in the black leather chair after pulling the ribbon off her arm.

“What are you going to do?” Sungyeol asks as her eyelids start to droop.

“Try and get her to get my laptop out.”

“What?”

“Even if I could get her to just overdose right now,” Dongwoo’s voice is hard, “I wouldn't. I don’t care if this is all because her brother or her family abused her—I am going to fuck with her head.”

Kang Areum’s head droops, her chin resting on her chest. Sungyeol leaves the kitchen as Dongwoo moves to stand by the chair, bends down to rest his elbows on the arm, and proceeds to speak firmly in English.

“Take out Danny’s laptop and hard drive. Plug it in. Connect the hard drive. Turn it on. Leave it on when you leave. Come back here on Monday. Take out Danny’s laptop…”

He leaves Dongwoo with the crows after the third repetition of words he doesn't understand.

 _I'm sure you've heard it all before_   
_But you never really had a doubt_

Sungyeol is a solid weight against him, pinning him against the wall he can’t feel. He holds on to the back of Sungyeol’s neck, his hands slid partway under the raised collar of his shirt, as Sungyeol nuzzles at the underside of his jaw.

“Kim Myungsoo?” It’s Dongwoo’s voice calling from below. “Where are you? I have good news!”

Sungyeol’s hands on the small of his back pull him closer, and he kisses the point of his jaw. He can hear, but not understand, Hoya speak from downstairs. He watches Dongwoo come up the stairs from over Sungyeol’s shoulder; Dongwoo’s look of surprise when he sees them fades as quickly as it came into being.

“I have something important to show you,” Dongwoo says, and turns around and goes back down the stairs.

 _I said maybe_   
_You're gonna be the one who saves me_

When Sungyeol finally unpins him with a strange look on his face he goes to the kitchen, Sungyeol following in his wake. Hoya is sitting in the armchair again, and Dongwoo is standing facing the counter; he can see the tails of two electrical cords trailing off the edge of the counter to an outlet in the wall.

“Hoya, you wanted Omarion?” Dongwoo asks; he’s looking down at something on the counter.

“Yup.”

And then a song plays, a completely different song than the ones that have off and on filled his unlife. It’s been so long since he’s heard a R&B song that it sounds bizarre to him.

“What are you doing?” he asks, going over to look over Dongwoo’s shoulder.

“I had an idea.” Dongwoo looks back at him briefly, then back down at the open laptop; iTunes is up on the screen. “I remembered that a lot of the stories about ghosts talk about how they can affect electricity.” Dongwoo is resting his hands on the keyboard. “I could sense it in her phone before, so I came up with a plan.”

“What are you going to do?” Sungyeol asks from the door.

“Like I said, I’m going to fuck with her head.”

 _Today was gonna be the day_   
_But they'll never throw it back to you_

Dongwoo sets up a marathon of James Bond movies playing from his hard drive at Hoya’s request, but they’re unsubtitled so he soon returns to the landing. He sits leaning against Sungyeol, his head on his shoulder, and holds his hand with their fingers interlaced.

“What do you think will happen?” Sungyeol asks quietly. “If he succeeds.”

There’s no need to specify more.

“I have no idea. It’s not like I believed in ghosts before this.”

They lapse into silence. Sometimes he can hear the faint sound of a movie explosion from downstairs. At some point it all becomes quiet again.

“Do you want to see me put my plan into place?” It’s Dongwoo at the bottom of the stairs again.

“Go ahead, if you want.” Sungyeol pulls his hand away. “I don’t care.”

He follows Dongwoo, who’s practically skipping, into the kitchen. Kang Areum’s playlist is on, and she’s slowly pushing the syringe down with her thumb. Hoya seems to have taken up permanent residence in the armchair, watching silently with his arms crossed.

“What are you going to do?” he asks Dongwoo, who’s standing expectantly by his laptop.

“Tell me when she’s off,” is all he says.

So he watches Kang Areum in the chair, the points of her heels dimpling the black leather, until her head nods.

“And this is my plan,” Dongwoo says, reaching out to lay one hand on the speakers and the other on the keyboard of his laptop, when he tells him that Kang Areum is unconscious.

He moves to watch the screen from behind Dongwoo. iTunes pops up over a paused movie. A playlist on the sidebar, one of many, is selected. It has seven tracks in it, the titles all in English. The first one is selected, and a new song starts to play over the speaker.

 _Today is gonna be the day_   
_That they're gonna throw it back to you_

“This sounds familiar,” he says a minute into the new song; it’s a woman singing. “But I know I've never heard it before.”

Dongwoo, his hands still over the laptop and the speakers, looks over his shoulder at him briefly. “It’s a cover of a really popular song—think of all the different versions of Red Dragonfly you've heard. It’s like that.”

“What is this supposed to do?” He looks closer at the laptop screen; it’s nine in the evening.

“Like I said, fuck with her head. Go watch her and tell me when she starts to come out of it.”

When she does Dongwoo lifts his hands; the song immediately reverts back to the original playlist. Dongwoo shoos away Woohyun from the chair and begins to speak to her in English.

“Come back tomorrow at midnight. Danny wants you to come back tomorrow at midnight.”

He repeats this until her eyes start to twitch under their lids, then he dashes back to the counter. The first song on the new playlist starts playing as Kang Areum works her way back into consciousness.

“Tell me when she’s awake,” Dongwoo says, his voice tight.

He does, and the song skips back to the beginning.

 _By now, you should've somehow_   
_Realized what you gotta do_

Kang Areum, her eyes barely open, frowns as the song goes back to the old playlist. She looks over at the counter, but the laptop screen is black now.

 _In my dreams I'm dying all the time_   
_As I wake its kaleidoscopic mind_

“So why are you doing this instead of, I don’t know, contacting the police?” They look over at Hoya, who raises his eyebrows at them. “I know you can’t access the internet on that, but there’s always her phone.” Kang Areum disconnects the phone in question as he speaks.

“I broke my wireless card, okay?” Dongwoo shrugs when he gives him a questioning look. “Don’t ask me how. I never bothered getting it fixed because I usually only used the internet on my laptop to torrent things.” He shrugs again, then addresses Hoya, “And where would that get us? If I sent the police a text or an email? It’s not like she took pictures or anything as proof. And even if they did send someone out here and they find our bodies, what then?”

They watch Kang Areum leave the house. “She’ll probably get put in a hospital for a few years and then get discharged.” Dongwoo’s voice is bitter. “She’s a rich girl obviously not in her right mind, and we’re a collection of not much better than rent boys. I would be amazed if she set foot in a prison.”

“Do you have any Korean movies on there?” Sungyeol asks from the doorway. “Or dramas?”

“Yeah, mostly thrillers and horror. And medical dramas,” Dongwoo says, his manner casual again.

“Nothing else?”

“I have all of Immortal Song up to the most recent episode.” He sees Hoya give Dongwoo an incredulous look, but Dongwoo doesn’t notice. “There are always a lot of interesting arrangements on it, so I like to keep up with it.”

It’s surreal to hear Shin Dongyup’s voice again.

 _In my dreams I'm jealous all the time_   
_As I wake I'm going out of my mind_

Dongwoo stops the episode—ALi had just finished her performance—an hour before midnight. At almost exactly midnight the door opens.

Tonight is the same as before, except now Sungyeol stays in the kitchen, leaning against the wall by the open door into the rest of the house.

Dongwoo tells her to come back again at midnight. Lines from the second song on the new playlist are in the air as Kang Areum opens her eyes.

 _I never meant to hurt you_   
_I never meant to lie_   
_So this is goodbye_

The Immortal Song spree continues on after she leaves again, weaving a little.

“I had a crush on Moon Heejun when I was younger,” Sungyeol says at one point, and Hoya snorts. Sungyeol turns to glare at him. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing.” Hoya looks up at the ceiling, and switches which leg he has crossed over the other. “I just would have thought it was Kangta. Or even Woohyuk.”

Dongwoo watches silently, his eyebrows raised; he shrugs when Dongwoo looks questioningly at him.

 _What is your satisfaction?_   
_I'll give you all you need_

Kang Areum, latex on her arm and syringe in hand, has her back to the counter.

“Now it’s time to get serious,” Dongwoo says gleefully, and puts his hands into position.

 _Forbidden love_   
_Are we supposed to be together_   
_I want you to notice_   
_Forbidden love_   
_What you've been missing_   
_Forbidden love_

He doesn’t even notice the man’s voice intercut with the woman’s in the song until the second time it happens, but Kang Areum definitely does: her hand jumps just as she goes to slide the needle into a vein and she jabs herself in the arm. Hissing in pain, she lets go of the syringe and it drops, clattering on the tile.

Breathing heavily she looks at the counter, but the screen is blank and the song continues on uninterrupted. She pushes her hair back from her face, shakes her head, and unties her arm—only to push up her other sleeve. He can see the scars Dongwoo talked about, thick and twisted in a band around her forearm.

She picks up the syringe on the floor, walks over to the sink and squirts the milky propofol down the drain. After putting the cover back on the needle she tucks it in a plastic sandwich bag she takes from the clutch.

Dongwoo lets her prepare a new dose and inject herself unmolested, watching her silently.

 _What do I have to do_   
_To make you want to fall in love with me?_

Dongwoo tells her to come again at eight in the evening.

 _I want you to notice_   
_What you've been missing_

Dongwoo let’s those two lines repeat as Kang Areum wakes up and starts to turn toward the counter, then it’s back to:

 _Forbidden love_   
_Are we supposed to be together_

Kang Areum is frowning when she staggers out of the house.

 _You can't escape what makes you tragic you know_   
_Vicious cause you want to be_

Dongwoo switches from Immortal Song to playing a single song on repeat fifteen minutes before eight. Sungyeol disappears into the rest of the house, but he stays in the kitchen, sitting on the table that their things had been covered in in the past.

 _Something painful's with you dear_   
_Makes me want—_

Dongwoo cuts the song off half a second after the door starts to open. The door freezes for a moment, then continues to open.

Kang Areum is obviously not doing very well. Her face is free of makeup, there are dark circles like bruises under her eyes, and her long hair is in need of brushing. Her hands are pink from the cold, and she’s shivering in her sweater-dress.

He sees Dongwoo grin.

Dongwoo waits until she starts to sit down after taking the ribbon from her arm.

 _You don't have to die to leave my world_   
_Stand still and you've departed_

The old song abruptly changes to the one Dongwoo had been playing in wait for her.

 _Maybe nobody really cares_   
_What's this to you anyway_

Kang Areum gasps and slips off the edge of the chair, falling down to sit crumpled on the tile. The song changes back immediately, but she’s looking around the kitchen with wide eyes. He can see her struggle to say something but the drug takes hold. Kang Areum slides out of consciousness and droops to the side until she lays curled on her side.

Dongwoo tells her to come back at noon.

 _Something dirty's got you dear_   
_Makes me want to be with you_

“She’s awake,” he tells Dongwoo. Kang Areum is still laying on the floor, the only thing moving her eyelids fluttering open.

The song skips forward.

 _You're better off saying nothing_   
_Repent so all's forgiven_

Dongwoo cuts all sound. Kang Areum’s labored breathing is loud in the room. When she starts to push herself up the old playlist starts in the middle of a song.

 _Just a twist in time ...and you could be mine_   
_Just a sip of wine ...and you could be mine_

Kang Areum stands in the open door a long time before finally leaving.

 _Born from silence, silence full of it_   
_A perfect concert my best friend_

Kang Areum has brushed her hair and applied makeup by the time she returns. After connecting her phone she walks through the entire house; he follows her and the crows on Dongwoo’s request. She says nothing, just opens every single door and drawer, leaving the doors open behind her.

“She’s coming back down!” he shouts as she starts down the stairs. He can just barely hear one quiet song change to a different one, the woman’s voice more operatic.

Kang Areum freezes, then clatters down the stairs. “She’s coming!” It’s shocking to see her move so fast.

 _Hasten to drown into beautiful eyes_   
_Walk within my poetry, this dying music_

Switches to:

 _For I've never known completeness_   
_Like being here_

As soon as her foot hits the tiled kitchen floor.

“Danny?” she whispers from the doorway. He sees her head turn towards where the laptop and speakers sit on the counter, out of view from the hallway outside the kitchen.

Dongwoo watches her silently, moving out of the way when she walks over to the counter. She checks her phone first, thumbing through several screens, stopping and starting the music. She unconnects the phone from the speakers and unplugs the speakers from the wall, inspecting everything closely, then does it back up again.

“Why doesn’t she look at the laptop?” he asks when she does no more than look at it for several seconds before turning away.

“I told her not to before,” Dongwoo says, watching her unpack her yellow ribbon with his arms crossed. “I didn’t realize it would work so well.”

“Why don’t you just tell her to overdose if you can get her to do that much?” Hoya asks from his chair. He mostly sounds curious, with no more than a little of his usual irritation.

Dongwoo just shakes his head.

“I’m going to kill her, but I don’t want to murder her.”

“You have some weird priorities for a dead man.”

Dongwoo shrugs. Once Kang Areum sits in her chair, before she’s completely out, he starts his own playlist of seven songs.

She passes out with his name on her lips.

 _Sing what you can't say_   
_Forget what you can't play_

He comes back from checking on Sungyeol—he was inspecting all of the newly opened rooms—to see Dongwoo speaking intently to Kang Areum.

“Alyssa, you think these are hallucinations because of the propofol but they’re not.” Dongwoo is speaking to her in an even, measured voice. “We’re all haunting the house. Danny is trying to reach you through the music. Alyssa, it’s not hallucinations you’ve been having, but ghosts…”

He looks to Hoya for a translation but he just points at the laptop. A single sentence in Korean is written in Notepad: ‘I’m going to get her to believe in us.’

“What good will that do? It’s not like she feels bad about killing us.”

Dongwoo shakes his head, continuing to speak in English until Kang Areum murmurs, “Danny?”

“Come back tonight at midnight. Alyssa, come back tonight and bring your propofol. You’re not hallucinating. The ghosts are speaking to you through the music. The propofol is the only way you can contact the ghosts. Alyssa, come back tonight at midnight…”

 _And you left me to die not wanting to care_   
_About the life you shattered of mine_

“Who’s there?” Kang Areum stands just inside the door; her hands and knees are pink with cold. “Danny? Are you there?” Her voice is flat.

He looks from her to Dongwoo standing at the counter, then at Sungyeol sitting next to him at the table when he squeezes his hand.

“So what are you going to do now?” he asks.

His only reply is the music that plays from the speakers, the laptop screen staying black.

 _Take the rose that you left on the window sill_   
_Take it back, and bury it inside my brain_

“It is you,” she whispers, her eyes going wide.

Nothing moves except her chest as she breathes for the entirety of the seven minute song; a gust of wind blows her hair and a dead leaf in from the open door. The song ends and silence takes over; she walks in and closes the door.

Her hands shake a little when she sets up her phone. She pulls out more milky propofol than she usually does for herself, but nowhere near the killing doses she administered in the past.

Dongwoo cuts off all of the music when she nods off in the leather chair. “Can she hear any of the rest of you?” Dongwoo asks, looking at each of them in turn.

“She heard me a little, before,” Sungyeol says quietly.

“Try it.”

There’s no response, no matter what Sungyeol says to her; there’s no response for him or Hoya either when Dongwoo gets them to try.

But when Dongwoo says, now speaking in Korean, “Alyssa? Can you tell I’m here?”

She murmurs and shifts.

Dongwoo straightens from leaning over her and shrugs. “Maybe it depends on who she killed most recently,” he says to no one in particular. “I’ll have to change my plan a little.”

Dongwoo doesn’t respond when he asks what his plan was.

 _Set me free_   
_your heaven's a lie_   
_set me free with your love_   
_set me free, yeah_

“So why don’t you just text her or something?” Hoya asks after Dongwoo sets a single song playing on repeat.

“I know her. She doesn’t respond to words well.” Dongwoo stands next to Kang Areum, looking down at her face. “I need time to figure out something else to do.”

Dongwoo spends the rest of Kang Areum’s unconsciousness telling her that she needs to come back in a week.

 _Oh no,_   
_here it is again_   
_I need to know_   
_why did I choose to betray you_

When she wakes up he restarts the song from the beginning and lets it play through once. When it’s done she gets up and leaves without looking back.

 _Because it’s my heart that’s not working_   
_I can’t send you like this, why?_

He opens his eyes, straightening up from where he’d been sitting on the table with his head on Sungyeol’s lap, when he hears Dongwoo singing in Korean. But Dongwoo is standing still in front of the laptop, frowning in concentration. There’s a song he’s never heard before playing.

“What is that?” Sungyeol asks. He lets Sungyeol push him back onto his lap.

“My demo. I was planning on trying to sell it after I got some feedback on it.”

 _You need to be there for it to be paradise_   
_This is paradise where I locked you up against your will Oh oh_

“These are some pretty fucked up lyrics,” Hoya, sounding approving, says from his chair.

Dongwoo just shrugs. When the song ends he starts it playing again.

“What are you going to do with it?” Sungyeol asks, continuing to pet his hair.

“I’m not sure yet.”

After the third repetition of the song it starts to change, shifting oddly and cutting between different parts of the song. He closes his eyes and just listens to it change, growing fuller and more detailed.

“I think I’m a little offended to find out that it’s easier to do this as a ghost than it was when I was alive,” Dongwoo says after a while. “Myungsoo, will you come over here? I want to try something.”

He goes to stand by Dongwoo, leaving Sungyeol on the table. There’s what he identifies as sound editing software up on the screen.

“Did you sing at all?” Dongwoo asks, looking up at him.

He shrugs. “I didn’t sound horrible at noraebang, but that’s about it.”

Dongwoo looks at the laptop and a page full of lyrics comes up; he recognizes the lines from the song. “Sing the first two lines.”

When he just stares at Dongwoo, the beginning of the song plays. When it stops after the two lines in question, he does his best to copy how Dongwoo had sang them.

Dongwoo stares at him for a while, then nods.

“I can make this work.”

 _Because it’s my heart that’s not working_   
_I can’t send you like this, why?_

Sungyeol gasps before he even realizes what happened: it’s his voice coming from the laptop.

“Sounds better than you,” Hoya comments, and he’s right. Dongwoo, grinning widely, repeats the beginning of the song, the lines unmistakably in his voice but far better sung than what he had done.

“Hoya, it’s your turn.”

 _I can only hold my breath and watch you_   
_I can only do that because I feel that you’ll shatter_

It only takes Dongwoo a few minutes to get Hoya’s, much more adept, singing voice into the song. Sungyeol takes even less.

“What are you going to do about them?” he asks, eyeing the others. “I’ve never even heard Woohyun speak.”

Dongwoo frowns, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. He watches Dongwoo look around the room, and how his eyes widen a little at the open pantry door.

“What are you doing?” he asks Dongwoo as he goes sprinting into the pantry.

“I’m just seeing if I can— Yes!” Dongwoo dances his way out of the pantry. “I can!”

“You can what?” Hoya is watching Dongwoo, in his chair again, with his eyebrows raised.

“The SIM cards.” Dongwoo disappears into the pantry again. “I can access them.” He leans his head out, looking embarrassed. “Can someone boost me? I can’t reach them.”

“Why do you want their SIM cards?” Sungyeol asks as he goes to the pantry; Hoya had just shaken his head when they looked at him.

“Because I read on Daum that Kim Sunggyu and Nam Woohyun were aspiring singers, and if I know aspiring singers there’s a high chance they have tracks of their singing on their phones.”

 _Stay here, I’ll keep requesting it, I’ll do better,_   
_I’ll give you more, because I still can’t send you off_   
_I, I need to live, I, I need to endure, I, I_   
_since it’ll stop soon_

It’s eerie to hear Sunggyu and Woohyun singing from the laptop; hearing their voices seems to have no effect on them by the door.

The cognizant members of the kitchen eye Sungjong in his corner. “I got him to speak before,” he offers. “I could try again.”

Dongwoo nods, and brings up a few words on the screen. “Try and get him to say that.”

He goes and crouches down by Sungjong, hugging his knees as he balances in the stiff dress shoes. “Sungjong? You in there?”

“Yes.” The response is so quiet that he can barely hear it.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

No response.

“Can you sing?”

Still no response.

“Can you repeat something I say?”

A, he feels, expectant lack of response.

“‘I love you”.”

“I love you.” His high voice is a whisper. He looks over at Dongwoo, who gives him a thumbs up.

“I don’t.”

“I don’t.”

Dongwoo does another one of his victory dances.

 _I’ll hold you a bit more,_   
_I’ll look at you more more more_

He lets Sungyeol pull him out of the kitchen. There are still days until Kang Areum will return and Dongwoo keeps messing around with his song, trying out different voices on different lines.

“So what do you think will happen?” Sungyeol asks, holding him pulled to his chest as they lean against the landing wall.

He leans his head back against Sungyeol’s shoulder. “I don’t know. None of this has been like I might have expected.”

“What if she becomes a ghost?”

“I have no idea.” It’s true. He can’t even imagine the possibility.

“Do you believe in heaven? Rebirth?”

He shrugs. “Never really thought about it much.”

“Neither did I.”

 _A sad paradise where you can’t leave even when you’re awake_   
_A paradise where we can be together forever oh oh oh_

After a while Dongwoo comes and asks them if they want to watch or listen to something. For a solid day Dongwoo does a running translation, including singing, of Sungyeol’s favorite animated Disney movies; when Hoya asks why Dongwoo has a collection of Disney movies on his hard drive he explains that he and his friend Eddie used to get drunk watching them together. After the Disney is all six Star Wars films. Then after some discussion Dongwoo starts up the Marvel Superhero movies when Return of the Jedi ends.

It’s a shock when he realizes that the last one came out after he died.

 _I, who always filled up my nights with you_   
_Yeah, it’s time to fill up my body_

Without talking about it Dongwoo shuts off the Shinhwa live concert an hour before Kang Areum is set to return. The kitchen is silent except for a squeaking fight between two mice under the counter. They watch the kitchen door from their usual positions; Hoya in his chair; Dongwoo in front of the laptop; and him and Sungyeol sitting together on the table.

“So what are you going to do with the song?” he asks finally.

“Play it for her.” Dongwoo shrugs. “See what happens.”

“What do you want to happen?”

“What if she doesn't kill herself?”

He and Hoya look at each other; they’d spoke at the same time.

Dongwoo just shrugs.

The door opens, Kang Areum invisible in the gray fog.

 _Because it’s my heart that’s not working_   
_I can’t send you like this, why?_

It’s the new version of Dongwoo’s song, but with his old vocals on it. It’s coming over the speakers, the laptop blank.

Kang Areum walks into the kitchen with widened eyes. She looks the same as always except for the fact that he realizes that she’s much thinner than when all of this started; he suspects, from the slight puffiness in her face, that she got fillers over the week.

 _I love you (you’ll do that),_   
_I don’t (you wouldn't do that)_   
_I only look at you_

The song cuts out for a few seconds, then continues on.

“Danny?” She closes the door and sets her clutch and phone on the table by the chair. Her expression is strange; not emotionless like before.

 _You need to be there for it to be paradise_   
_A paradise where we can be together forever oh oh oh_

He wouldn't have noticed the missing two lines if it weren't for how often he’d heard the song.

“You don’t hate me, Danny?” Kang Areum says in a little girl voice; Dongwoo translates without seeming to realize what he’s doing.

_Stay here, I’ll keep requesting it, I’ll do better_

The song stops like it did before, for a few seconds and then starts up again.

“You want me to stay with you?” She shakes her head. “But Danny, I— You—” Another head shake. “You rejected me.”

The next sentence is a whisper, “They all did.”

 _I, I need you, I, I even without you, I, I_   
_really need you now_

This line is so loud there’s corruption in the sound from the speakers. Kang Areum jumps, gasping, one hand at her throat as she looks around her.

 _You need to be there for it to be paradise_   
_A paradise where we can be together forever oh oh oh_

It finishes at the old volume. Silence fills the kitchen except for her gasping breath.

“But Danny, you… you don’t understand.” Tears are filling her eyes. “How can I? I, I, I tried to be like in the story, but I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. I wanted to be your Iseul but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't kill myself.” She shakes her head. “I meant to be someone else’s Iseul, but they had sex with me when I gave them money for it so I knew it wasn't real.”

He looks at Dongwoo after he finishes translating but he only raises his eyebrows and shrugs. “Fuck if I know.”

“If you’d said you loved me.” Kang Areum is crying now, hugging herself tightly. “Danny, if you’d just kissed me back I, I wouldn't have killed you. We could have been together. I would have stopped trying to be Iseul.”

“I doubt it,” Hoya says, twiddling his thumbs as he considers the ceiling. “Will you get on it? I don’t want to listen to her.”

Dongwoo shrugs, and puts his hand back on the laptop.

 _Because it’s my heart that’s not working_   
_I can’t send you like this, why?_

Kang Areum’s legs give out under her when it’s his voice and not Dongwoo. “Myungsoo?” she gasps out.

 _Even if it looks shaky and risky,_   
_I can’t do anything to hold you back, why?_

“Sunggyu, how are, how—” Kang Areum can barely talk she’s crying so much.

 _I love you (you’ll do that),_   
_I don’t (you wouldn't do that)_   
_I only look at you_

“Sungjong… Woohyun…”

She sits on the floor, hugging her knees and sobbing. She flinches each time a new voice appears.

 _You need to be there for it to be paradise_   
_This is paradise where I locked you up against your will Oh oh_   
_A sad paradise where you can’t leave even when you’re awake_   
_A paradise where we can be together forever oh oh oh_

As their seven voices together stop singing and the song finishes, Dongwoo starts laughing. “I remember them now!”

“Remember what?” he asks, looking at him from Kang Areum crying on the floor.

“All the names in her damn story—they’re all native names, like Areum. She never named the male character.”

When he hears his voice singing again it’s in English, a line from the first song on the playlist for her brother.

_Sarang, why are you taking so long?_

“Myungsoo, how—?” Kang Areum’s eyes are opened so wide it looks like they’re trying to fall out.

_Seulgi, you're the only one for me_

“Sunggyu, no—”

The next five come one after another, leaving no time for Kang Areum to do anything other to sit on the floor with her mouth open. He’s so familiar with the songs now that he can tell some of the lyrics have been changed even without knowing what they say.

 _Haneul, we're supposed to be together_   
_Bora, I wait in the darkness_   
_Nari, I've found the one I've waited for_   
_Hana, all that I say now is that I love you_   
_Iseul, it's of you I dream_

It’s silent except for Kang Areum’s sobs.

 _I don't believe that anybody_   
_Feels the way I do about you now_

It’s Dongwoo’s voice, plaintive and melancholy.

Kang Areum gasps again, then whispers, “Really?”

 _I never meant to hurt you_   
_I never meant to lie_

“Lie? You were lying when you said you didn't feel that way about me?” Hope fills Kang Areum’s voice and expression. “But why?”

Dongwoo sighs. “No time to try and find the perfect response for that.”

 _What do I have to do_   
_To make you want to fall in love with me?_

“But Danny, I do love you. I do. More than anything.”

“Liar.” Dongwoo waves his hand at Hoya to be quiet.

 _You can't escape what makes you tragic you know_   
_Vicious cause you want to be_

“I know. I’m sorry, Danny. I couldn't help it.”

“Liar!”

“Shush!”

_And you... I wish I didn't feel for you anymore…_

It’s spoken instead of sang, Dongwoo’s voice soft around the English words, and it makes Kang Areum cry even harder.

“Interesting tactic.”

“Hoya, I told you to shut up.”

 _If I could care once more_   
_I'd take it all back_   
_Just to have one more chance_

“But you’re dead.” Kang Areum hiccups. “I killed you.”

“No shit.”

“Hoya!”

 _Set us free with your love_   
_Set us free_

She doesn't even seem to notice the multitude of voices. “But how?”

 _You need to be there for it to be paradise_   
_A paradise where we can be together forever_

Kang Areum sits on the floor for over an hour without moving. Finally it’s like a switch is flipped and she stands up.

“What is she doing?” Sungyeol asks when she immediately goes to the counter by the sink.

“I have no idea.” Dongwoo’s eyebrows are raised.

Kang Areum takes off her sweater-dress and bra and puts them in the sink, then pulls off and adds her shoes and panties Then she takes a pair of scissors out from a drawer—and starts to cut her hair, sawing at it over where she has it pulled into a tail behind her head.

“Oh. I think I know.” They all look at Dongwoo, who shrugs. “I liked girls with short hair.”

They watch Kang Areum give herself a remarkably good haircut with the kitchen scissors, tossing the hair on top of her clothing in the sink. The last snip from her bangs, and she puts the scissors away and pulls out a plastic jug of cooking oil from under the counter.

A match, and the clothes, leather shoes and hair are set ablaze.

“You know, I’m actually happy that I can’t smell that.” He can’t help but agree with Hoya, eyeing the thick smoke.

Naked, Kang Areum briefly disappears into the pantry, returning with one of her packing boxes which she sets on the small table by the black leather chair.

“That’s just fucked up.”

He also agrees with this sentiment of Hoya’s, watching Kang Areum dress herself in Dongwoo’s old clothing. Even as not-big as Dongwoo was, it swallows her petite, skinny body.

Sungyeol nudges him when Kang Areum kneels to tie the brightly colored high tops. He raises his eyebrows at him in question.

“Whatever happens,” Sungyeol starts to say, then looks away a second before focusing again on his face. “I just want you to know that I’m glad I met you.”

He leans his head on Sungyeol’s shoulder. “I’m glad too.”

“Would you have gone out with me?” Sungyeol asks. Kang Areum is situating the snapback over her short hair. “Before, I mean. When we were alive.”

He seriously considers this. “Maybe. If we’d known each other.” He shrugs a little. “I never really thought about it—dating guys. I wasn't against the idea or anything but it just seemed like too much hassle. It was easier to date girls when I wanted to bother with it at all.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

Kang Areum has left off Dongwoo’s hooded sweatshirt, leaving it across the foot rest while she returns the box. She looks ridiculous, like a kid dressed up in her big brother’s clothing.

“Danny?” She’s opening her clutch. “Play me a song.”

The instrumental of the last song from her playlist starts playing as she sets out the yellow ribbon, a syringe, and a single bottle.

 _Well, I could sleep forever,_   
_But it's of her I dream_

“She’s doing it.”

He doesn't even know who says it, his entirety focusing on Kang Areum pull propofol into the syringe until it’s full; it uses up the entire little glass bottle. She tucks away the needle cover and the empty bottle.

Kang Areum sits down in the leather chair before shooting up, balancing the syringe on her lap as she arranges the sweatshirt around her shoulders and leans back against it.

 _If I could sleep forever_   
_If I could sleep forever_

She ties the latex tight over her elbow on the arm with the scar. He gets off the table and waves Sunggyu and Woohyun away so he can watch, Sungyeol following him.

It takes her a little to find a vein, and she winces as she slowly pushes in the propofol. She quickly unties her arm and sets the ribbon and the now empty syringe on the table beside her, and wraps herself up in the sweatshirt.

“What’s going to happen?” Sungyeol asks, taking hold of his hand.

“I don’t know,” Dongwoo says quietly.

Hoya leaves his chair to join their huddle around her.

At some point Kang Areum starts to violently twitch. “Seizures can be a side effect.” They look at Hoya, who shrugs. “What? I read about it before.”

The song ends.


End file.
